Having gone behind early on
to Reading, Spurs came good to win 3-1 against the second bottom
side in the Premier League and now they face the team one place
below them. Rocky bottom QPR are on a good run of one win and
will be looking to take another top club scalp after beating Chelsea
away.

With the advantage of having
Harry Redknapp, Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan in the dug-out, Rangers
will be hoping that this will give them the opportunity to
mastermind a victory over their old employers, but the team under
AVB is a very different beast and while Harry might know the
players, they way he used to play them will not be a blueprint to
how they will run out on Saturday lunch-time. With a variety
of one or two up front, Andre Villas-Boas can change the formation,
giving free rein to the three behind the front man (and the two
behind them) to move forward and use the space available to them.
Alternatively, with two up front, a more conventional 4-4-2 can give
the side the familiarity to work the ball wide and have more support
from midfield.

With Redknapp knowing what
damage Lennon and Bale can do, he will get his midfield to work hard
and the forwards to shut down our defenders, to prevent them having
time to play the ball through his side. However, he is not
fully aware of how Mousa Dembele and Sandro operate, taking turns to
cover for each other when they move forward. This gives Spurs
an alternative attacking option, which Rangers might find difficult
to counter.

Their defence has been their
weak point with worries over their keepers and Ryan Nelsen being
their best player in the back four. Jose Bosingwa wouldn't
travel for one game and has developed a back problem, Armand Traore
is also out with an unspecified knock and old stalwart from Harry's
Portsmouth days, Ben Haim has been drafted in to shore up the back
four, with rumours of William Gallas being one of his prime targets
in the transfer window. They have Fabio on loan from
Manchester United, Clint Hill, Anton Ferdinand and Nedum Onuoha, but
they have failed to work as a unit and there is a lack of pace
there, which could be exploited. Last season, it was the start
of our slump in the late winter/early spring and the team did not do
enough to test the Rangers defence. This time, they need to
get at them and early on to upset any sort of confidence they might
have from keeping a clean sheet against Chelsea.

Rangers swamped their squad
with players brought in during the summer and while they didn't
spend huge amounts of money, they have them all on big money wages,
so have found that there is a lack of quality and that it will be
difficult to shift a lot of them on, as teams will not want to take
on their salaries. It is in midfield that there is a number of
players, but not a depth of quality. Having released injury
hit Kieron Dyer, it has taken one big money earner off the books,
but there are others such as Ji-Sung Park, Shaun Wright-Phillips,
Shaun Derry, Stephane Mbia, Samba Diakate, Alejandro Faurlin and
Esteban Granero, who need to step up their game to help Rangers out
of their predicament. Granero can be an effective player, with
an eye for a creative pass and a player who can score goals, but he
has failed to live up to his reputation at Real Madrid and perhaps
this explains why other teams didn't take a punt on him.
Wright-Phillips scored the goal against Chelsea, but often is a
peripheral figure in games, while battlers like Mbia, Diakate, Derry
and Park are not doing it effectively for QPR. Spurs must not
let themselves be bullied out of the game by Derry and with Sandro
and Dembele, they have physical players who can withstand this
approach now.

With Adel Taarabt playing up
front rather than in midfield in the Chelsea game, Redknapp might
keep him up top. There is no doubt that the Moroccan is highly
talented and skilful, but with his back to goal, he may be less
effective than running at defences. Good from dead ball
situations, he sometimes frustrates his own team and fans, with his
tendency to take the responsibility on himself and shoot when other
players may be better placed. With Zamora and Johnson both
having been missing for a large part of the season, it has been
unfortunate for Rangers, but they should be scoring more and it is
the lack of goal - just 17 in 21 games - which has left them in 20th
position. Jamie Mackie is a good striker, but not prolific and
Djibril Cisse has been erratic after having been away from the
Premier League for a while. Harry might spring a surprise and
field either Jay Bothroyd or DJ Campbell, who are both back at the
club now, just to try and throw a spanner in the works, but the
Spurs defence should be able to cope with a QPR side who would be
trying to rough them up. The days when that worked are
disappearing with a tougher back four not willing to be pushed
around.

With a comfortable FA Cup win
over Coventry last week, it was an opportunity to give some of the
squad a game and to rest some others, with Adebayor about tog o off
on African Cup of Nations duty, you might hope he would want to go
out with a bang to ensure that anyone signed in his absence might
still face a battle for a place in the team when he gets back.
Defoe will need to be on his game, making the most of chances that
come his way and with games coming up when he might be the main
striker, he could get his eye in here.

Spurs will be comfortable in
possession and the question will be how much QPR have the heart to
harass Spurs non-stop for 90 minutes plus to prevent them playing
their own game. Rangers will not go out with a plan to play
their game and impose it on Tottenham, so a stalemate could occur,
but I think that enough opportunities will come our way (especially
with the way we have been playing) to give us the goals to separate
us from the R's.

You could have headlines like
"Harry Makes His Point" or "Honours Even", but the gap between the
two teams was clearly on display if it was not evidenced by the
score-line.

What Andre Villas-Boas is doing
at Tottenham bears little relation to the job the former Spurs boss
Harry Redknapp has on his hands at Loftus Road. With the
attacking mostly done by Spurs, Redknapp only had to replicate the
tactics that frustrated his side towards the end of last season to
try and keep them out. Well, that and some help from Julio
Cesar's right hand and left leg ... and the woodwork. Any
credit for the draw should got o the performance of his players, as
it wasn't tactics that won this day, it was hard work put in by the
hopped shirts to try and hold Spurs at bay. And the fact that
Tottenham didn't play to the best of their ability, with a few
players off their best and losing Sandro halfway through the first
half meant that there was one vital cog of the side missing for much
of the match.

Coming into the game with
the curse of the "Manager of the Month" award about to exercise
itself, AVB brought in Gareth Bale for Gylfi Sigurdsson in the only
change from the last league match. But the game was played out
in much the same manner as last season's meeting there, but with AVB
securing a point whereas Harry lost the game, when Tottenham's
manager. With Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor linking up
well early on, allowing Defoe space coming in from the left to fire
in a shot from just outside the area that Cesar got the finest of
touches to to divert it against his right hand upright, Tottenham
were unlucky not to take an early lead. The rebound fell to
Adebayor, but with South Africa and the Cup of Nations on his mind,
he took too long to get the ball under control and hit a low shot
from eight yards out that Cesar got his arm to and knocked the ball
into the ground and the ball bounced over the bar. The Togo
striker had already curled a lazy effort wide and his touch was poor
today, with his reactions looking slow, which allowed Rangers'
defenders to pick the ball off him too easily most of the time.

Defoe looked lively, but he
was not getting a lot of service, as Spurs failed to get Bale and
Lennon in the game enough and when they did, they got dumped on
their arses most times, with referee Probert allowing QPR players
tog et away with a lot, while Dembele got a booking for his first
offence of pulling Jamie Mackie back, while the QPR forward
committed a string of "clumsy" and "over-enthusiastic" tackles.
With Spurs not moving the ball or themselves as quickly and
effectively as they have done in recent matches, QPR had a
relatively easy task of packing their side with prosaic clumpers who
have the prime asset of getting back behind the ball. Which
they did effectively, but it left them with only Adel Taarabt up
front to try and hold the ball up until the cavalry arrived in
support. Luckily for Spurs, Adel had one of the days where he
tries to win a game on his own and when he did receive the ball, he
tried one trick too many and Tottenham players managed to
pick-pocket the ball off him.

So, as the game followed
what was to become a familiar pattern, with Spurs building a passing
movement, only for it to founder on the rocks of massive
boulders in front of the Rangers goal, then they would either give
the ball away or get it taken away from them. Thus few chances
were actually created. Gareth Bale was restricted to efforts
from corners and long range, with a header at the keeper, an
ambitious volley from way out on the left that went behind before it
got to the goal and a cheeky back-hell behind his standing leg from
a low corner into the near post by Walker. Rangers had an
opportunity in the 12th minute, when Taarabt played a pass inside
Walker to Wright-Phillips, but when he tried to cut inside in the
box, Dawson got their to deflect his delayed shot wide. Dawson
had a fine game, getting into tackles with good timing, but in the
22nd minute Sandro went down after trying to play the ball back into
the Rangers penalty area, with nobody around him. It looked
bad straight away, with him holding his knee, so Scott Parker came
on in his place.

The change didn't affect
Spurs too much, as Parker spent most of his time moving forward, as
Sandro had done, as well as getting fouled regularly and not getting
free-kicks for them. He had a couple of go at goal too, as did
Dawson, with both from over 25 yards out and both going wide.
Into added time and Wright-Phillips went around Dawson with a rush
of pace, but then a rush of blood caused him to shoot too quickly
and off-balance, he sliced wide when well placed in the area.

At the start of the second
half, Spurs kicked off with an immediacy that took QPR a little by
surprise. A free kick when Defoe was brought down outside the
box allowed Bale to dip one over the wall and it was fairly easy for
Cesar to take, but he needed a second go, as the ball dropped to the
floor. Then Parker had a go from 25 yards out and the ball got
a bit closer to the goal this time, but it was on the up and went
over with the keeper having it covered. The crowd wanted a
penalty in the 52nd minute, when Lennon was running wide left and
was pulled back by Fabio, with the little winger falling into the
area, but the referee gave a free-kick on the left hand corner
of the box. This time Kyle Walker stepped up to take it and it
dipped a fraction too late. A foot lower and it would have
been in the very top corner to Cesar's left ... not that he knew
much about it, as he was standing still as it almost grazed the bar.

Within a minute, Spurs were
in again and this time, Dembele won the ball just inside the QPR
half, worked it through Adebayor and onto Defoe, who switched from
left to right foot in the area and his shot looked goal-bound until
it flicked off a defender's knee and Cesar stuck out a left foot and
the ball somehow stayed out. There was a series of corners
from which we didn't score (no surprise) and Lloris had a pretty
quiet afternoon, only being called upon twice in the second half to
sweep up behind the high line. Firstly, he beat
Wright-Phillips to a through ball and when the trick was tried
again, he produced the high-point of the second half with a
clattering tackle that took out Mbia who was already flagged
offside. A case of the Rangers man getting some of his own
medicine.

There were a couple of nervy
moments when Fabio put a low ball across the face of goal with no
hooped shirt there to read it and when Wright-Phillips went into the
box before falling over his own feet resulting in the know-nothing
QPR crowd calling for a penalty. They had been booing Lennon
all afternoon after Fabio had pulled him back and the referee didn't
see it and were howling for Dembele to be sent off when he committed
a foul after being booked while Mbia eventually went in the book for
a handball after he had been shoving Spurs players over all over the
pitch. Desperate times at the Loft obviously.

For Spurs there were two
more efforts on goal, with Bale firing a low free kick wide of
the wall, but also wide of the goal, then in added time at the end,
Defoe had a shot blocked by Hill. It summed up Tottenham's day
really. Off target and others getting in the way.

All the talk was about what
Harry will do for Rangers, but frankly, that is his and their
problem. Luckily, we didn't suffer too much with other results
going our way, although a win would have kept up above Chelsea
and drawn away from the others. There are tougher games coming
up, with it being a spell of games which might cause us problems.
There will need to be more urgency in the United game next week and
I am sure the tempo will be higher for the whole game then.
Without Adebayor, it might mean that Dempsey will get a chance ...
or a mystery new striker if Daniel can barter one form somewhere,
although nearer the end of the window might be more likely.